Question on Gemming

Being a Disc Priest I'm all about mp5 gems and sp gems. Was looking at the top Disc Priests on my server and a few of them are gemming straight intellect. I'm reading everything I can find and I'm not entirely sure why they'd gem intellect. Yes more mana is great but I love my mp5. Of course I'll stay with my preference but I'm really curious as to why to gem for so much mana. I can't find any info as to the benefits other then a larger mana pool. Their stats are the same as mine (crit, spell power and haste) only diference is they have more mana and less mana regen.

Sounds stupid and I should probably know the answer but I've tried to find answers on my own, I just can't seem to at all.

Re: Question on Gemming

Originally Posted by Jeneva

Being a Disc Priest I'm all about mp5 gems and sp gems. Was looking at the top Disc Priests on my server and a few of them are gemming straight intellect. I'm reading everything I can find and I'm not entirely sure why they'd gem intellect. Yes more mana is great but I love my mp5. Of course I'll stay with my preference but I'm really curious as to why to gem for so much mana. I can't find any info as to the benefits other then a larger mana pool. Their stats are the same as mine (crit, spell power and haste) only diference is they have more mana and less mana regen.

Sounds stupid and I should probably know the answer but I've tried to find answers on my own, I just can't seem to at all.

Thanks,
Jen

Because intellect stacks with certain buffs, because Replenishment increase your MP5 based on mana pool, so the bigger is the better is your MP5.

Not even HPriests are gemming MP5 now, Discs Priests have to go straight for Intellect nowadays.

Anyways, when you're at a point that your gear gives you enough Mana without intellect gems, you can start socketing for SP/Haste for Disc and SP/Crit for Holy

Re: Question on Gemming

Izenhart: Totally agree on the notion of stacking int being superior (even for holy), but wouldn't the crit/haste recommendation be the other way around?

Discpriests are mostly locked by cooldowns anyway, stacking haste is relatively subpar unless you cross the treshold where you can squeeze in another heal between penance. On the other hand, the more crit, the more procs on DA, which is significantly increasing the efficiency of a discpriest. Or am I missing something?

Holypriests are often casting big heals with a long casttime, making haste very great and a massive contributor to making us scale. The only thing crit offers to a holypriest is Holy Concentration, which isn't something you need to rely on if you just stack int, like every healing priest should.

Re: Question on Gemming

I socket purely for spellpower. I got 25.4k mana unbuffed and enough crit and haste to keep me afloat and never run out of mana during raids. I can see why int is better than mp5, though when it comes down to it spellpower is a superior stat because it simply increases your healing. Easy as that.

If I was a Blizz server technician, I'd hijack a server and use it to download porn 24/7. Guess why the instance servers always are full B]

Re: Question on Gemming

Originally Posted by Danner

Izenhart: Totally agree on the notion of stacking int being superior (even for holy), but wouldn't the crit/haste recommendation be the other way around?

Discpriests are mostly locked by cooldowns anyway, stacking haste is relatively subpar unless you cross the treshold where you can squeeze in another heal between penance. On the other hand, the more crit, the more procs on DA, which is significantly increasing the efficiency of a discpriest. Or am I missing something?

Holypriests are often casting big heals with a long casttime, making haste very great and a massive contributor to making us scale. The only thing crit offers to a holypriest is Holy Concentration, which isn't something you need to rely on if you just stack int, like every healing priest should.

HPriests cast Prayer of Mending, Circle of Healing, Renew, PW:S, Flash Heal and Prayer of Healing.
As you can see 4 out of 6 spells do NOT benefit from haste, and you'll find yourself at a point where you only use FH when SoL is procced.
So, 5 out of 6 spells do not benefit from haste, and the only one, has already a huge cast time cut due to Serendipity, making any player Haste value almost irrilevant.

Comes out, in the end, that haste is useless for an HPriest.

Haste on a DPriest is just for a faster cast of FH, else they'd just stack for SP.
And that is because, as example im taking my own gear, I've a medium ilvl items of 240, and raidbuffed, with 0 crit sockets and just 2 int sockets, I've 42%crit in Discipline, and 52% with FH, wich makes really relative the need of stacking crit even more.

Re: Question on Gemming

pw:s as holy, rly?
yeah there are moments its the best option, but it should not be a spell you frequently use as holy
definatly not when there is a disc in the raid.

and haste isnt useless, it may be less usefull, but that doesnt make it useless.
when you have lower itemlevel using some gems on haste isnt a bad thing.
agreed, on higher levels all the haste you need is on the gear.

Originally Posted by Dreamless

Heh, ahh the internet. Where the 'glass is half full' and 'glass is half empty' people are both shouted down by the heaving masses of "WAAAAH! I WANT A FULL GLASS! WAAAAAAAH!'

Re: Question on Gemming

Why on earth would you stack haste as disc when you're virtually haste capped from talents? Crit is a much better choice for disc since it means more DA procs. Also your comment that Hpriests only cast PoM, CoH, Renew, PW:S, Flah and PoH is wrong. They don't PW:S if there is a disc priest in the group because its pointless and directly nerfs the disc priest's job. HPriests also come in with GHeal too which benefits greatly from haste. Ask holy priests out there if they like haste & they'll tell you yes. Haste also lowers the GCD which means they can cast more instant cast spells more frequently. Holy isn't as dependant on crits as disc is which is why disc prefers crit over haste too.

Re: Question on Gemming

Originally Posted by Izenhart

HPriests cast Prayer of Mending, Circle of Healing, Renew, PW:S, Flash Heal and Prayer of Healing.
As you can see 4 out of 6 spells do NOT benefit from haste, and you'll find yourself at a point where you only use FH when SoL is procced.
So, 5 out of 6 spells do not benefit from haste,

*pushes the pause button*
Global Cooldown still is reduced, even on heal spells, by Haste.
*unpauses*

and the only one, has already a huge cast time cut due to Serendipity, making any player Haste value almost irrilevant. Comes out, in the end, that haste is useless for an HPriest.

Last I checked, the average raid encounter doesn't give you time to build to three stacks of Serendipity between Prayers. Needing to cast Prayer, and having it, is a bonus. Needing to cast it without, because you geared away from haste ("omg useless") is what'll keep you held back.

Haste on a DPriest is just for a faster cast of FH, else they'd just stack for SP.

Actually, at certain points of haste, it does become beneficial to weave in a Greater Heal, especially after hitting the softcap with Borrowed Time up. Faster Flash Heals, a Greater that's not just 100% a waste (nor any prayers you may have to support with, unlikely but it does happen) and a Penance that just screams "OMG FAST LAZORZ", Haste helps.

And that is because, as example im taking my own gear, I've a medium ilvl items of 240, and raidbuffed, with 0 crit sockets and just 2 int sockets, I've 42%crit in Discipline, and 52% with FH, wich makes really relative the need of stacking crit even more.

Crit has diminishing returns, in an odd sense of the word. The more you get of it, the less its value becomes.
Sure, having "more" helps, but there comes a point (usually after 30% unbuffed Holy Crit, in my opinion but your mileage may vary) that it's not really "helping" as much as it used to.

Tank's still getting hit hard. And you're playing the RNG game. Tilting the odds in your favor, you could hypothetically get 80% crit, for example, but there's still the 20% of the time that you are not crit'ing. If it's to boost up Divine Aegis, really that should be the icing not the base of your cake. Having more haste means more casts going off. More casts means more health in general, a higher reaction speed to the burst you need, and surprise, a higher chance to squeeze in more on an already active Aegis. Oh noes.

Sorry, but maybe you should come back and try again.

Originally Posted by Rtwo

pw:s as holy, rly?
yeah there are moments its the best option, but it should not be a spell you frequently use as holy
definatly not when there is a disc in the raid.

Re: Question on Gemming

Int is generally the best yellow stat for all healers (even druids) because while you might not always need the extra mana and regen, harder content will stress your mana pool. Beyond int, haste would likely be the next best stat for a healer. Spellpower is still the king though.

But if you plan on regemming for ICC, by all means, gem something else.

Nom Nom Nom [NNF] (2 points) - When you Ferocious Bite a target at or below 25% health, you have a 50/100% chance to instantly refresh the duration of your Rip on the target.

Re: Question on Gemming

Originally Posted by Kelesti

Last I checked, the average raid encounter doesn't give you time to build to three stacks of Serendipity between Prayers. Needing to cast Prayer, and having it, is a bonus. Needing to cast it without, because you geared away from haste ("omg useless") is what'll keep you held back.

In the average raid encounter, assuming you've a fairly decent amount of crit, you'll PoH, proc SoL and use it, CoH, proc SoL and use it, and renew/Pom/FH, with SoL proccing, here you are at 3x Serendipity before the next PoH.

About that PW:S being useless for Holy and that if ther's DPriest they're the ones with the Shield job;

Running away from Anub in p2?
Someone who went too far away from the raid and it's running back?
Acidmaw debuff when you've to run asap to Dreadscale?
Someone in the middle of fires?

Re: Question on Gemming

Originally Posted by Izenhart

In the average raid encounter, assuming you've a fairly decent amount of crit, you'll PoH, proc SoL and use it, CoH, proc SoL and use it, and renew/Pom/FH, with SoL proccing, here you are at 3x Serendipity before the next PoH.

Anub? Valks? I'm pretty sure that we're going to see some fights with similar raid damage (re: omgmichaelbayexplosionskaboompowboobsomg) in Icecrown. And sure, there are situations that let you build charges. But if you're relying on those charges because you have zero haste, I'm sorry to put it like this, but "you're doin' it wrong".

Serendipity is nice, when you build it. Going out of your way to build it in a massive raid damage environment is counterproductive.

Originally Posted by Rtwo

i can manage those things w/o it so i dont see a reason to spec in it.
but in the end it all comes down to personel preferences so i guess its an endless discussion

It helps, it brings utility. It's like saying "I can manage my raid without resto shaman." Sure, you can. You may not see a reason to have one, and for the most part you get by. But having that resto shaman, on the other hand, may just make some encounters a LOT easier if you know how to utilise it correctly.

No fight is a patchwerk. There's moving, even if you're not doing it to avoid stuff, your melee is. Getting them back in the fight is another 9k damage they couldn't do the first time. Lather, rinse, repeat, and that's time off of boss kills that could be make or break. (Try it on "non-stacking" twins during the switch, for example).

Re: Question on Gemming

Originally Posted by Kelesti

Anub? Valks? I'm pretty sure that we're going to see some fights with similar raid damage (re: omgmichaelbayexplosionskaboompowboobsomg) in Icecrown. And sure, there are situations that let you build charges. But if you're relying on those charges because you have zero haste, I'm sorry to put it like this, but "you're doin' it wrong".

Noone in any raid will be with no haste. Considering the haste granted by raidbuffs, and even a slight haste like I have, around 200, you cast will be boosted anyways.

Ehm...about doing it wrong...you aren't supposed to heal anyone during Anub, MUCH LESS spamming Prayer of Healing.
Valkyr Twins is situational, personally I can just spam Holy Nova for my party, and spam PoM/Coh, wich grants me a nice supply of SoL. And even with that, the chance of a PoH spamming in a raid with 2 Resto Druids, 2 Shamans and 2 Beacons healing the raid, it's very low.

Originally Posted by Rtwo

i can manage those things w/o it so i dont see a reason to spec in it.
but in the end it all comes down to personel preferences so i guess its an endless discussion

It's an endless discussion most probably, even if you claim to be able to live without it, it's a fact that is some of your raid member fucks up Anub kiting, and the impale repops 2 time faster to hunt someone 20 yards away, either you speed boost him with PW:S, or you waste a Cooldown.

Re: Question on Gemming

You can check my priest in my signature, but I stack straight int because I feel a) more comfortable with a big pool. b) more int = more crit. c) more int = more mp5 believe it or not from certain spells/talents.

Deep down though, I also just liked trying to get my mana pool as big as I could.. obviously now I no longer play, so this is what I left him with.